The Chronicles of Ashton Malloy
by Garin Brightblade
Summary: Set in the Highlander universe and involving a cast of original characters, the Chronicles follow Ashton Malloy as he faces the harsh reality of the Game and the implications of immortality. Rated R for mild language and violence.


Author's note: Greetings everyone. This is my first attempt at writing fan fic, so if it's a little shaky or lacking in some area, please bear with me. In this story, I took the concepts presented in the Highlander series and chose to follow an original Immortal. It will probably take me three or four chapters to sufficiently tell the story, though I have plenty of ideas for things to do with the characters later on, depending upon the responses I get. Thanks for reading, and please review if you get a chance.

The Chronicles of Ashton Malloy

Descent

Chapter 1

The darkness of the new moon had fallen over the parking lot like a burial shroud, interrupted only occasionally by the irregularly filled street lights that dotted the parking lot. The emptiness of the parking lot was disrupted as late night movie patrons began filing out of the cinema. Most exited in small clusters, talking amongst themselves. Bleary eyed parents smiled as their kids ranted excitedly about the movie they'd just seen.

Clusters of teenagers laughed loudly, joking with their friends.

Ashton Malloy gazed happily into the eyes of the girl that sat beside him in the passenger seat of his car - Marguerite Delaney, his girlfriend. "So, Meg, what did you think of the movie?"

"You know, I really couldn't get into it."

"_Lowlander: The Final Battle_ didn't do it for you, huh?" Ashton replied with a slightly amused smirk, "They should have really stopped trying after the first one. Heck, the second should have been a lesson to them, but no…"

"As if the movie had anything to do with it!" Meg grinned, matching the gaze of her boyfriend.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ashton shot back, bringing both arms up in a questioning and overtly fake innocent gesture.

"Yeah," she replied sarcastically, then, remembering something, her playful tone turned to one of concern in an instant, "Oh my God, Ash, I left my purse in the theater. All of my money and credit cards are in there, will you run get it for me?"

"Sure, you going in too?"

"No, it's too cold out. I'll just stay here with the heater while the car warms up, if you don't mind, of course."

"Not at all. I'll be right back." Ashton left the car running and jogged back to the entrance of the movie theater. They had had to park in the back of the parking lot, so it was quite a walk, and he hoped to get to the door before it was locked for the night. It was late October, and given the time, a good chill hung in the night air. It was especially cutting at Ash made his way through the parking lot, he'd already given up the warmth of his black leather trench coat to the young woman sitting in his car. It was several years old, and though worn, was still in great shape. It dutifully kept the cold away from the girl he loved. Unfortunately, he could not say the same for the black mock turtleneck he was wearing. It was tucked into a dark colored pair of blue jeans, accented by a plain black belt and a pair of black leather work boots.

He reached the door in time. Inside, he could see the clerks at the food stands cleaning up. The janitorial staff was already hard at work. No one bothered to ask him for a ticket as the movie they had just seen was the last showing of the night and it was thirty minutes after midnight. He found the theater they'd been in. The staff was still working, picking up cups and candy wrappers. One of the workers shot him a curious glance.

"My girlfriend left her purse in here, have you seen it? It's black, neon green and has anime character patches sewn to it, you couldn't have missed it."

"Yeah, we found it, hang on a second." the worker responded. He was a young guy, Ash guessed that he was around 16, 6 years his junior. The kid yelled "Hey Jess, bring this guy the pocketbook we found."

----

As Meg was warming in Ashton's car, she fiddled with the radio, leaning forward a bit trying to coax Ashton's cantankerous old CD player to play the cd she's just put in. An unexpected tap at the window snapped her attention off of the radio and caused her to leap back in the seat with a start.

"Give me all of your money, now!"

Meg gasped as she looked out of the lightly tinted window of Ashton's '93 Thunderbird. The mugger appeared to be in his thirties. He stood there, boring a hole in her with cold grey eyes. A scraggly goatee hung off of his chin and a mass of curly, greasy hair hung out from underneath a dark brown toboggan. In his hand he held a small pistol, the instrument with which he had implemented in tapping the window. It was now pointed right at Meg, his finger on the trigger.

"I….I don't have any." She stammered, forcing a reply around the lump that was welling in her throat. Anxiety had rushed in like a flood at the sound of this man's voice. She had never been held up before. Her mind racing over the possible things that could happen, she struggled to maintain her composure.

"You're lying to me! Open this door, I'll get it myself!" The man snarled.

Meg started to respond but a tap on the window with the muzzle silenced her. "Open the door now! Don't think I won't shoot you!"

Left with no other option, Meg unlocked and opened the door. She watched on helplessly as the man moved in closer. She fixed the man with a gaze that was full of anger and fear all at once as tears began streaming from her green eyes.

"Well, well, aren't you a pretty little thing?" the mugger snorted as he held her chin in one of his rough, grimy hands, which contrasted sharply with her soft, smooth, lightly tanned skin "Hmmf, forget it, I don't have time…now give me your money!"

"I told you, I d…don't have any. I don't have my purse."

"Damned girl…" In one quick movement he pulled the trigger and fired off a shot. Meg felt the searing metal tear through her side. Her body convulsed with pain.

---

"What the hell…?" Ashton heard the shot echo from the direction of his car. He broke into a run. No. _This can't be. It must have come from somewhere else_. A feeling of dread gnawed at his stomach as he sprinted through the near empty parking lot. As he drew closer, his fears were confirmed. A darkly clad man was standing over a form on the ground by the passenger side of his car. _Meg! No!! Damnit! No, this isn't happening!_

His pace accelerated to a speed only reached by someone enraged or full of fear. In his case, it was both.

The thief had grown frustrated when he found no money. He had grabbed Meg and thrown her to the ground outside the car, infuriated beyond reason. He raised a hand to slap her while she was on the ground.

"Don't touch her, you son of a bitch!" Ash snarled from behind. He had startled the man. In the time it had taken him to regain his breath, Ashton was on him. Before the man had time to react, he felt a viselike grip seize his raised elbow and wrist. A sharp twist sent his upper half lurching forward into the metal door frame. His elbow emitted a dull pop as it gave way. The man reeled around. Ash moved in to attack, briefly catching the cold, glazed over look in the man's eye, and the black object in the opposite hand. He knew he had heard a gunshot, but was not prepared to face it. He had reacted in rage and panic, not even thinking about the possibility of it being turned on him.

"You bastard!" The man spat. At close range he emptied the remainder of the clip into the young man's chest. Injured and now realizing that others might be coming, the man bounded off through the shrubs into the night, cradling the busted elbow as best he could along the way.

For just a second, and one that seemed like an eternity, Ashton Malloy looked down at his bullet riddled chest. The events that had just transpired could have hardly been real. They felt so transient now. Lucid. It had all happened so fast. How could this have happened? The adrenaline rush ended as quickly as it had began and stark reality sat in. The failed hero slumped to the ground. Not yet dead, but quickly fading, he drew in a labored, ragged breath. Everything around him span. Everything was gradually being consumed by a black haze. Everything save the last sight in his eyes before he met his end. Meg, the girl he loved laying in a slowly growing pool of blood. His last thoughts were of his utter failure. How could he have failed his most precious person?

"Meg, I'm sorry…" His last words came out as a raspy, barely audible whisper as he breathed his last. Every image and thought waned and faded into nothingness.

Seconds later, Meg's eyes closed as she too became lost in the nothingness. When she had been shot, she nearly passed out then, but was brought back to consciousness when she'd been pulled out of the car. She watched in silent horror as her boyfriend was gunned down in front of her. Her mind screamed out at an image she could not accept, but all of this was to no avail. Those thoughts were clawed into the void of unconsciousness as everything went black.

--So…this…is death. But where is this? Where am I? This certainly cannot be heaven. Nor is it hell. But where? It is almost how I would imagine space. The darkness, the weightlessness. Only there is no form, no substance. This place seems to be the definition of nothingness in the purest sense of the word. A void. The only things that seem to exist here are my own thoughts. But then, how can I claim them as my own if I cease to be? I did die, after all. Perhaps this is a void into which lost souls are sucked who have not fulfilled their purpose in life. I had hoped to do so much in life. So much ambition and I die before I finish college. What a sad existence. Worse yet, I have died a failure. My dreams and aspirations will never come to pass. Perhaps for that, I deserve to be here. No. Worse still, in my dying act, I failed to protect Meg. I failed her. For that, I deserve to burn…--

Crack!!

Raw blue energy arced and flexed across the void, filling it, bringing both substance and sound as it hissed and popped like lightning no longer obligated to find the quickest path to the ground. It cracked and popped angrily, dancing and writhing through the void. Then the noise gradually faded. Images started appearing in the air. They hung there in a misty, ethereal form. Flashes of Ashton's life. Images of him playing in his childhood, practicing martial arts as he grew older, hanging out with friends, camping with the Boy Scouts as a young teenager, holidays, funerals, times spent in class, and intimate candlelight dinners shared with Meg. They all came quicker now, more steady, like the beating of a heart. Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. The only thing that remained was the steady beating of a heart.

Thump, thump.

Thump, thump.

Thump, thump

The void seemed to spin. Ashton felt as though he were sinking. The feeling was not unlike the feeling of sinking to the bottom of a lake. The affect was dizzying. Suffocating.

Ashton drew a deep, gasping breath, then another. His eyes shot open wide in utter shock.

"What the he….I'm alive! But how?! I died, didn't I?"

He began to take in his surroundings. He was still surrounded by darkness so thick he couldn't see. But he could feel though. He was surrounded by thin linen material. Too thin, in fact because it did nothing to warm or cushion him from the uncomfortably cold metal he found himself lying on. He had never been in such a place, but it gradually sank in. He realized that he was in the hospital morgue. He pulled back the linen cautiously, his hands examining his chest in the darkness. Nothing. No sign of bullet holes, no wet sensation of blood. It was as if he had never been shot. --_But _how? I was shot about four times in the chest, I know it!-- It didn't make sense. He tried pushing at the door he was contained behind. With some effort, it squeaked open.

It was dark in the morgue. Luckily, no one was in the room when he slid off of the shelf he'd been laying on. A shiver ran up his spine. The place was creepy. --One dead person getting up is odd enough, who knows what else could happen?_--_ The thought made Ash shiver, that combined with the sudden realization that he was standing in the room stark naked. He grabbed the sheet that had been draped over him and wrapped it around himself.

He glanced around the room nervously, looking for any sign of movement. Even with the shock of everything that had just happened, Meg still remained on his mind. The gunshot. Those last few moments when he'd seen her lying on the ground in her own blood, not moving. How he'd been too late. He knew that she must be in here somewhere as well. He didn't know if he could bear it, but he had to know. He had to see for himself. And maybe, just maybe if he was still alive she might be also.

He began pulling open the drawers, but it was to no avail. She wasn't there, nor did it look as if anyone else had decided to get up. The charts, he thought. They would tell him if she'd been brought in or not. His eyes scanned the dark room. Spotting them sitting on the edge of a desk, he thumbed through them quickly. No luck. He did find his own however.

He flipped open the manila folder bearing his name and held the report up to a beam of dim light let in from the outside hallway. Caucasian male…DOA…bullets found in the right ventricle of the heart, two in the left lung, and one lodged in the sternum. Ashton's hand went to his chest again in disbelief. He kept the file with him so he could examine it in more detail later.

Having determined that his girlfriend was not in there, Ashton decided that it was time to bid farewell to the morgue. He couldn't just leave though, not how he was dressed. He plundered around through a set of lockers until he found what he was looking for, his belongings. In a small tray he found his wallet, car keys, and a ring. The ring was silver with Celtic knotwork weaving around the band, joined by a claddagh, two hands holding a heart with a crown on it. It was a traditional Irish symbol. He'd bought two while he was on vacation about the year ago. The other, which was nearly identical, only slightly smaller, would be found on Meg's finger, should Meg actually be found. He looked through the rest of the contents of the locker. His shirt was still in there, as was the rest of his clothing. The shirt he'd been wearing was covered in blood. Deciding that walking out of the hospital in bloody clothing would cause a stir if he was seen, he opened up another locker. A woman's clothes_. --_That would probably raise just as many eyebrows as the bloody shirt, I think not_-- _He closed the door without a second thought and swung open another. He pulled from it a black sweater. It fit snugly, but it would suffice. Opening yet another locker, he pulled out a pair of faded blue jeans. They were too baggy, but they would have to do. He also found an old, worn out baseball cap and put it on. He slid on his own boots and closed all of the lockers, leaving them as close to how they were when he'd found them as possible. He folded up the file and tucked it away in the oversized back pocket of the pants he'd just acquired.

Clack. Clack. Clack_._ Ash's eyes widened as he heard footsteps drawing near. He ducked behind the desk, hoping they would pass on by. He had no idea as to how he would even begin to explain himself if he were caught. He swallowed hard at the abrupt stop of the footsteps right in front of the door. The door swung open. Ashton gripped his knees tightly. He felt as though his heart was in his throat. He heard the pop and hum of fluorescent lights being turned on. The sudden light was nearly blinding, causing Ash to wince. The woman walked towards the desk, stopping in front of it. Ashton edged underneath it as quietly as he possibly could. He just knew he'd be caught. He heard the click of fingernails scratching the top of the desk as an unseen hand scooped up something. Ashton breathed a silent sigh of relief when the woman walked off. He heard a door open and close in the back part of the room. --Good, it's finally clear.-- Sensing the opportunity, Ashton made for the double doors to the morgue and escaped to the safety of the hallway.

Ashton walked into the men's restroom at the end of the hall. Once inside, he exhaled heavily. The stress of the past few moments had been intense and now he finally felt somewhat safe. He pulled off the baseball cap and ran some cold water and splashed it into his face. Looking up into the mirror above the sink, he looked over himself, making sure nothing had changed since his unexpected awakening.

Everything was as it had always been. Ashton's long light brown hair, though tousled, hung down in layers. He tried to arrange it as best he could. At the moment, that simply consisted of him pushing it back behind his ears and out of his light blue eyes. His skin was the usual pale color is usually was. He never had been able to tan that well. He held his gaze in the mirror for a moment longer. He had a very slight amount of stubble. He never really liked shaving, but he did at least try to stay clean shaven most of the time. Stubble or not, he was handsome either way.

He moved on to survey the rest of his body, once more examining where he had been shot. Still, there were no signs of it at all. It was as though it had never happened. He had an average to small frame, standing at five feet and seven inches. He was thin, yet athletic. Though they were not overly large, his muscles were powerful and defined. He attributed this fact to a combination of working out, martial arts, and unloading trucks at the shipping company he worked at part-time. Satisfied that he was whole and intact, he put the cap back on and walked back out into the hallway.

A number of thoughts played through his mind as he walked quietly down the long hospital corridor. --How many people saw me being brought in? What would happen if one of them noticed that I was alive? What if they catch me walking around with these clothes on from the morgue and suspect I did something with my own body? Where is Meg? If she had died, wouldn't they have brought her here? Wouldn't I have seen her? Maybe she didn't though. What if she made it and is being treated? I bet she'd be in the Intensive Care Ward. I could check and see. I'm fairly certain that the people working on that ward wouldn't have seen me. It's risky but I have to find out. I have to know…--

Ashton rounded one corner then another until he came to the elevators. At the late hour that it was, there was little waiting to be done for an elevator. One opened up and Ashton stepped inside. It was empty and remained so all the way up to the fourth floor where he got off. The nurses' station was across the hall from the elevators.

Ashton glanced through the window. There was one nurse in the room and she was pouring water into jugs to take to the patients' rooms. He walked past the station and down one of the corridors. The charts for the patients sat in their holders by each door. He walked slowly, looking at each one. Finally! He found it. "Delaney, Marguerite." His spirits lifted at the thoughts of his love still being alive. He pulled the door knob down, hearing the slight click of it opening. Just before he would have swung the door open, a boney icy hand clamped down on his shoulder. Was it Death come to reclaim him?


End file.
